


Caught in this pool held in your eyes

by shaolins



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon?, M/M, Pre Grammy Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 12:34:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13501760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaolins/pseuds/shaolins
Summary: “Don’t avoid me,” Zayn warns him. “And don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”Zayn and Harry see each other after almost three years.





	Caught in this pool held in your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyyyy! This is my first fic so please do go easy on me. Title is from ‘Open’ by Rhye. hope you guys enjoy!!!

Zayn walks into the bathroom, quietly, dragging his feet the same way he used to; like he’s forcing himself not to make a sound. Always so shy - it kind of blows Harry’s mind, how he’s still so him, after so many years. His steps are so light on the bathroom floor that Harry almost doesn’t hear him, but his body knows Zayn’s so well, still.

“Harry,” he says, and Harry doesn’t turn around, just looks up from where he’d been washing his hands, staring at Zayn on the mirror. He looks good as ever, or even better - his are sides shaved and his nose ring sparkles under the light. If Harry wasn’t so mad he would be on his knees already.

“Zayn Malik,” he nods. He turns the water off and goes to dry his hands but stops when Zayn puts a hand on his chest. 

“Don’t avoid me,” Zayn warns him. “And don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

The fact that Zayn can read everything off his face makes Harry livid, his hands shaking. “Avoid you? Why would I be avoiding you?” Harry says, viciously, and that makes him turn around, that makes him step into Zayn’s space and stare at him hard. “I’m not the one who fucked off, changed numbers and addresses,” Harry all but spits. “You’re a joke.”

Now Zayn’s mad too, his eyes widening as he lets out a fake laugh. “I’m the joke?” he says, “take a look at yourself, Harry. Where have you gone?” 

That makes the air of Harry’s lungs go all out, his arms dropping at his sides like a puppet with its strings cut. “What?”

“I keep looking at you and I don’t see you!”

Harry laughs, and keeps laughing: it’s that or bursting into tears. “You think you know me. I haven’t seen you in almost three fucking years,” Harry says, and he doesn’t mean to raise his voice, and he doesn’t mean for his yes to water, but it happens and he can’t stop it. “One day we’re touring and the next - and the next, you pull me aside and tell me you’re leaving! and you never even told me-“ and he stops then, because he can’t, he can’t say it.

“Told you what?” Zayn says, his voice raised as well. His face doesn’t betray him though, not like Harry’s; his eyes aren’t wet or red rimmed, but then again, Harry was the crier. “I told you everything! You knew everything. You knew everything about me.”

“Did I?” Harry says, wiping a tear. He can’t look at Zayn anymore.

“You did! You did, you obtuse asshole!” Zayn pushes him then, and, okay, maybe he’s not keeping his cool as Harry thought he was. “Look at me. Look at me, Harry.”

He does, and that’s the end because next thing he knows he’s being pushed to the bathroom sink and he’s opening his mouth to let Zayn’s tongue in, and it’s the same, it’s the same - Zayn tastes like cigarettes and whiskey and Zayn, and Harry loves him, has loved him for seven years. 

“Come on,” he breathes between kisses, and he doesn’t know what he’s asking for. “Come on, Zayn.”

“Harry,” Zayn moans, and it’s so pained, like it’s been dragged out of him. Harry almost cries of relief, the knowledge that Zayn still wants him making him smirk as his hips thrust forward. When their crotches rub on each other and he can feel Zayn’s hard on Harry thinks he could die and go straight to heaven.

He only stops kissing Zayn because Zayn’s hands drop on his chest and he pushes him back. “I’m not fucking you in the same party Beyoncé is at,” he says, and when Harry looks up he sees a smile there. He hates how it makes his heart start beating even faster.

“Well that’s a little assuming.”

“You did rub your hard dick on mine.”

***

They don’t stay, and after saying a million goodbyes and shaking a million hands they take separate cars to Harry’s TriBeCa apartment.

“It’s nice,” Zayn says as he takes in the place, and it’s dripping with sarcasm. He looks at the empty walls and the big windows that look down at an empty street. “Very you.”

Harry sighs. He should’ve seen this coming. “I see the mood’s been killed,” he says, sitting down hard on his sofa. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to explain himself. “I don’t come to New York much.”

“Right.”

Harry suddenly feels like crying. “Why does this keep happening?” and then he can’t stop: “I wanted us so much to match. Always. But there’s always something.”

That seems to get Zayn to soften. “Harry,” and he sits down with a hand on Harry’s leg. It makes Harry’s heart beat faster. “We matched. You were always there, fuck,” Zayn gives a soft laugh. “I couldn’t shake you. You were under my skin.”

“Then why?” and he looks into Zayn’s eyes because he needs to see it. “Why did you push me away?”

Zayn tilts his head. “Ever crossed your mind that not everything is about you?”

Harry raises his eyebrows. “Okay.”

“I didn’t push you away. Our paths just drifted.”

“Can you be like, straightforward for once?” Harry says, rolling his eyes. “Just fucking say it. Why you left.”

“Because it wasn’t what I wanted,” he says with a shrug. “I didn’t like the music. I loved you, all of you. But it wasn’t enough.”

“You’re so fucking annoying,” and he didn’t mean to snap but there it is. He stands up and walks around the room, trying to make sense of the everything going through his mind. “You think it was all rainbows and flowers for the rest of us? I told you - how many times did I tell you? All the fucking lies, everything they made us go through. But we went on!”

“We don’t all work the same way, Harry,” Zayn says with a sigh. It’s so condescending, like he’s talking with a child and not someone his age. It makes Harry livid. “You don’t get it.”

“I don’t get it? Get off your high fucking horse, Zayn!” he walks until he’s in front of him. “It’s me, okay? You can be some pretentious prick to the rest of the world but not to me.”

That makes Zayn stand and then they’re face to face. “Pretentious prick? Have you seen you?” and that’s what Harry wanted, to get under his skin, to see him mad. “You walk around wearing high fashion shit and think that will give you a personality. You don’t get to say anything to me!”

“That what bothers you?” and that’s nose to nose, Zayn’s heavy breaths on Harry’s mouth. “That’s what you’re mad about? You’re such a fucking hypocrite. Dating models is your personality then?”

That gets him a kiss, a vicious one; Zayn shoves his tongue in and then bites Harry’s lip, and then Harry pushes him until he’s seated and gets on his lap. He doesn’t wait to unzip Zayn’s fly and when he gets a hand on Zayn’s dick and he lets out a helpless moan, Harry can’t help but feel like he’s won.

“You went safe,” Zayn says, panting. That gets Harry to stop. “You changed. You didn’t speak out of line like you used to, and you went with the music they told you to. Remember when we used to sneak out?” Harry nods. “You stopped. Why did you stop?”

Harry closes his eyes, and that’s it; he’s never gonna be more vulnerable than now, with the truth laid in front of him. Zayn’s just stripped him bare in his own apartment. 

And Harry’d thought he won.

His voice shakes as he speaks to truth to the space between their faces. “I just wanted them to like me.”

“Babe,” Zayn says, so soft, and Harry’s glad his eyes are closed because he’s sure he couldn’t stand the pity that’s probably in Zayn’s face right now. “You can’t make everyone like you.” Harry feels a strand of hair being brushed from his forehead. Then, a kiss on the cheek. “Just stay true to yourself and fuck the lot of them.”

And once that’s out there, Harry can’t stop the truth from spilling. “I’m not mad that you left the band. I mean, I was mad. But not entirely because of that. I just wish you’d kept in touch.”

“Open your eyes.”

Harry does. Zayn’s eyes aren’t pitying like Harry’d been expecting them to: they’re soft, understanding. “I know. I’m so stupid.” Another kiss on the cheek, then on his neck. That one lingers, though, and Zayn keeps his face hidden. “I’m sorry,” he breathes on Harry’s neck and he sounds small, like a kid being scolded. “I just thought you hated me.”

“I do, a little. But not because of that.”

Zayn looks at him then, his brow furrowed. “What for, then?” and he looks so cute that Harry can’t stop the smile that spreads on his face. 

“Just don’t leave me again.”

****

They do fuck, then, but they take it slow, making up for all the nights spent apart. They don’t make any promises, and Harry doubts it will be easy - because after all, it’s them - but when he wakes up the next morning to Zayn’s sleepy face watching him, he thinks they’ll be okay.


End file.
